On the Ambiguities of Laclauian Populist Leadership

Looking at the political developments of the past few decades, it is interesting to observe two seemingly opposite types of political movements. On the one hand, we have those that are often referred to as leaderless or horizontal political movements, such as Zapatistas in Mexico and Occupy Wall Street in the United States. On the other hand, there are populist movements with a clear leader, for instance, Hungary's Viktor Orbán or Alexis Tsipras in Greece. It appears that the former pushes toward greater autonomy and agency for the individuals, whereas the latter moves toward further concentration of power in the leader. But it also seems that the latter has enjoyed greater success in terms of seizing power and materializing their political projects. Political theorists have weighed in on this conjuncture, each presenting arguments in favor of movements with or without a clear leader figure (Hardt and Negri 2004; Kioupkiolis and Katsambekis 2014; Mouffe 2018, 2022). In such academic debates, populist leadership has been the focal point of arguments that denounce populism as normatively unfavorable. These arguments question the compatibility between liberal democratic regimes and populist movements and find the vertical relationship established between the populist leader and the mobilized citizens problematic. For instance, drawing on Western and Latin American cases, Jan Werner Müller argues that populist leaders make an anti-pluralist claim that “they and they alone represent the people,” which in turn renders their opposition as well as dissenting citizens as outcasts that do not need to be treated as equal citizens (Müller 2016: 101). In a similar vein, Koen Abts and Stefan Rummens maintain that populism is “proto-totalitarian,” for it shares with totalitarianism “the fictitious image of the people-as-one” that is ultimately represented by the populist leader (Abts and Rummens 2007: 414). Furthermore, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri claim that populism features “constant lip service to the power of the people but ultimate control and decision-making by a small clique of politicians” (2017: 23), suggesting that populist movements cannot offer anything more than a façade of democracy. It is then no wonder that Ernesto Laclau's theory of populism—which has been a central reference point of populism theory in general as well as its left-populist strategic adaptation—has been criticized for the centrality that the leader occupies in the framework. Critics have pointed out that Laclau's formulation harbors authoritarianism or a cult of personality and is therefore questionable as a democratic force (Arato 2013; Arditi 2022; Ballacci 2017; De la Torre 2013, 2019; Peruzzotti 2019). Such concerns are also directed at Chantal Mouffe's proposed counteroffensive to right-wing populism which is based on Laclau's understanding of populism, leading some scholars to dismiss the left-populist strategy to be inappropriate for our current political situation (Cohen 2019; Fassin 2019). Furthermore, empirical examples, such as the case of Podemos, which featured a gradual concentration of power in the hands of its leader, Pablo Iglesias, seem to confirm that this uneasiness expressed by critics is not merely theoretical or speculative (Kioupkiolis 2016; Mazzolini and Borriello 2021; de Nadal 2021; Rendueles and Sola 2018). These circumstances lead us to a set of questions. Is Laclau's theory of populist leadership indeed authoritarian? 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